Lensman Skitter of Earth
by Arthur Hansen
Summary: Three ancient alien races, all with designs on Earth. One to destroy, one to dominate and one to save. Luckily, a hero was found when needed. A lensman.
1. Lensman Skitter of Earth 1-1

The four minds as one were investigating the disruption to their plans. For while they could calculate out to the smallest degree of this reality, intrusions from beyond even their senses were something that were, in essence, impossible to calculate, as their probability was diminishingly small. But not impossible, just improbable. They once again took a moment to remember that even though they were vast and powerful in the intellect, they were not infallible. Their enemies that had appeared before still had to be adjusted for, as they were near equals in power and intelligence.

Unfortunately, it appeared that they would have to be blatant and subtle, making this new entity not quite understand that limiting yourself to even one world, even almost infinite variable was a limitation. So one of their number would have to travel to a far off reality, to send the Lens of Power from an Alternate Earth that was useless to the entities, as it was composed entirely of anti-matter.

Such a matter was a moment of adjustment, but did require a different sort of understanding of how the universes all worked. Such knowledge would have to be made available through the Lens, if someone were to think of it.

Mentor of Arisia came to the agreement. It was decades early, but the holocaust destruction by nuclear weapons was now considered a minor issue to the people of that Earth. Now small decisions would be changed. The primitive biological 5th dimensional connection between humans and the entities could be tweaked by direct mental manipulation.

People that would have been worse choices for powers were deemed unsuitable by the precognitive sensitive connections between the aliens were now proper. New people were now chosen. People that that could be suitably manipulated with no physical evidence. The Entity may look for them, but would look in the wrong direction.

And in a far off antimatter alternate universe, the first Lens of Power was created.

* * *

Taylor Hebert had finally found all of herself after a week of fighting to understand the senses and feelings were coming from insect minds around her. To her doctors and nurses, she just started to become more lucid. Fighting through the tranquilizers had been a bit hard.

They called her breakdown hopefully temporary, but there was a strange tightness about that when they talked. That had started to loosen up when she started to talk, fitfully even as she twitched from someone stepped on a bug in the basement.

But she had just had a nice talk to her dad. Danny Hebert had been unhappy to find out that she had been bullied, but he told her that he had used that information to get the Brockton North School District to pay for their medical bills.

But now that the horror of all those feelings and sensations swamping her mind, she realized that she had a superpower. Bugs, of course, but at least it didn't mutate her like she seen some people. (Though she would ruefully admit, she would not have minded any improvements in her feminine looks.)

'Taylor Hebert, you will be the first. You know of injustice, corruption and evils of humanity. Know that if you have the will and the strength, that you can turn your world away from destruction, to save your civilization. Into your hands, we place a powerful item; The Lens of Power. No toy, this lens only works for you. Any other life form may find itself dying or in serious pain if they attempt to take it away from you. It is not immune to being picked up by the things you call superpowers and their projections. This is, in fact, a mere secondary security feature,' a mental voice said.

And now she had fallen down the nutso slide again, Taylor thought to herself. The weight on her lap made her look down at the large circular crystal and dark; it seemed unnaturally dull for some reason.

'Such simple thinking is to be expected after your trauma and limited treatment, but this line of reasoning should be abandoned. You will need to train up your body and your mind, learn how to fight and how to make peace and overcome many obstacles. This, Mentor of Arisia, has entrusted to me and then to you. You have infinite worlds that you must learn of. Are your ready, Taylor of Earth?'

Sure, why not, she thought to herself.

'Then take up your Lens and keep it in contact with your skin. It's power of amplification, that you will have to learn of yourself, will assist you. You may be the First Lensman, but by no means the only one. And only by all working together will you succeed at the grand task.'

Taylor picked up the crystal, only to blink in amazement as it started to shine with an inner brilliance, far nicer than any diamond she had ever seen.

And in the back of her mind, she felt a wounded being flinch at her awareness. It was not truly sapient and barely comprehended pain and death, so not really sentient. But it had a knowledge of itself and its kind, which were alien beyond belief. Dimly, beyond it was the sense of its entire self, many that are one but always at war with itself.

Belatedly, Taylor realized that was the source of her bug control powers. That was entirely shocking, that her power came from some thing, not just existing. It was feeding and expanding, already the size of a small hill.

A lens was something to amplify light, but Taylor was sure that this was nothing so mundane. It seemed to allow her to feel feel emotions and beings. So perhaps it was an amplifier of thoughts? She did not feel smarter, of course. Perhaps try to sense her bugs through it?

Instantly she felt a shift, a perceptible shift as she felt her bug control range more than triple. She whistled softly to herself. Suddenly Taylor looked up at the door as she realized she felt that someone familiar was coming to the open door. The Lens went under the sheets of her hospital bed.

"Hey, kiddo? Are you ready to try and go home?" her father asked, looking more pale and older. He finished walking up to her and gave her a hug.

"Yeah, I think so." Her hand gripped the Lens under the covers tightly. She could feel her father, dimly. His emotions, the sense of what he was about to say, if not the words.

The Lens amplified mental powers.


	2. Lensman Skitter of Earth 1-2

Taylor was not looking forward to today. At all. It was snowing, though it looked like it would not stick. She had an unusually steadiness to her thought, she realized suddenly.

"Come on, kiddo. We need to get you there early," her father Danny said. "I'm actually surprised at how well you bounced back."

"Um, me too." Taylor followed her father out to his older car. She patted the small of her back, where she had used a stretch ace bandage to place the lens against her skin. Safe on her and active. Just in case.

On the drive to school, Taylor sat thinking. 'Mentor of Arisia?' she shouted out mentally.

'To within a half second! Mentor continues to always show that there is more to learn and expand one's mind. But to correct your thought, I am not Mentor of Arisia, but one of his many students. You may call me Student on Far Earth,' the mental voice explained.

Taylor blinked, as she had not thought that could work. 'Why am I so calm and collected? And you are precognitive?'

'To answer your first question, I took matters to correct the psychological scarring that was inflicted. To forestall your worry, this is the culmination of the type of skills that your own psychologists have started to come to a crude understanding of. You are still yourself, but more well adjusted and able to cope with your trauma. To your second question, no. Precognition posits an unchanging universe. Our mere look into the future would either be impossible or predestined, giving us no illusion of free will. What we can do is calculate things in great detail and understand how they should interact to a very high degree as based on our current understanding."

'So you just fixed my brain with telepathy?' Taylor actually had a very hard time believing that. 'And you are so smart you just understand how everything will work out, but it's not predestined.'

'To put it crudely, yes. I will leave you to your thoughts.'

Ten minutes later, she was still grappling with those thoughts as if they were some immense beast on the verge of overwhelming her. Taylor then was pulled out of her thoughts, quite literally, by Danny pulling the old Oldsmobile up to the curb in front of the school.

"Hey? Are you really okay going back there? I've been trying to convince Principal Maddens that he should push harder at transferring you to Arcadia," Danny said, trying to smile.

"I'm fine. Really. It's like the docs put my brain back together better than it was before," she explained with a grin. She opened the door and stepped out.

As she walked up to the front doors, she noticed people giving her strange looks.

"I thought she was sent away? Locked up in the looney bin?" one girl asked in the background.

"She's different, like that forced her to pull herself together. Like a new person," her boyfriend said.

The door closed behind her. She started to walk to her locker in habit, then realized that there wouldn't be anything left. Which was fine, everything she had left in it had been stained or messed up already. With a nod, she walked up the main stairwell to the library to get new school books.

As promised, free and totally new textbooks. Exiting with her books for the morning (the other ones in behind the counter until lunch) she headed to her first class. She was actually still early and plopped into the seat in the center back row.

She was keeping herself aware of things without trying to look like bait for the trio-trap. So saying, she was playing with both of her powers, trying to get the feeling of what she could do with her bugs and sensing them.

And trying to make sense of the emotions and partial thoughts she was sometimes getting. So she was surprised when she felt hate and animosity at the doorway just six minutes before the bell

"Well well, if it isn't Tattletale Taylor. I thought you'd be gone for at least another week," Sophia Hess said, a twisted smile on her face. She was giving off a confident look, but underneath was something darker, a hungry urge to hurt and inflict pain. But overshadowing everything was a small bit of worry and a sharp tang of unexpected surprise.

Emma Barnes and Madison Clements their best haughty impersonations as they 'invaded' her one safe class. "Well, at least she isn't foaming at the mouth," Emma said.

That got a titter out of Madison, the most 'cute' one of the group.

"I didn't realize your obsession has gotten so ingrained that you couldn't do without me," Taylor said tensely, but barbed home sent home. "I mean, what would you do with your petty, spiteful and mean lives if I wasn't around to bully? Kick puppies and steal candy from babies?" And, to Taylor's self shock, she meant every word.

The alien thing in the back of her mind reacted as it felt something. Something Taylor picked up just a second later. An echo of another alien. She blinked her chocolate brown eyes, narrowing them as she realized someone here... someone else here was a parahuman.

"Fuck you, Taylor. You're just a worthless crybaby, headed to your next breakdown," Sophia replied angrily. The hunger in her grew as her anger expanded. '-ucking weakling pre-'

Down the hall about fifty feet away she felt an older, more organized mind moving through the last minute crowd of students.

"So you find something even worse to stuff in my locker, then assault me and stuff me into the locker again? I mean, what are you going to get this next time? Dirty diapers?" Taylor prodded carefully, with very specific timing. The glare she was giving the trio did not have the hint of the broken girl from a week ago.

"Nah, we will do something different. No need to repeat the same things to keep you in your place," the dark skinned girl said, her smile showing her pearly white teeth in an unfriendly smile. That look... that was no longer prey. And Sophi hated that. Taylor was her prey.

"Well, that sounded like you put Taylor in that nasty locker a week ago. Girls," Mrs. Knott said from right behind them.

They all started in surprise and turned around.

"What? We wouldn't put her in there-" Madison started to say rapidly, her eyes blinking too quickly.

Emma and Sophia were just glaring at Mrs. Knott as they started thinking rapidly.

"Don't you have class to go to?" the woman asked, finally blinking. She looked away and down over to her desk.

The trio retreated even as Taylor just watched them leave. Then she started to pack her new backpack, leaving her books. As the bell rang she stood up.

"Taylor? What are you doing?" Mrs. Knott asked.

"Leaving. It's obvious no one in this school is going to do their job and stop the bullies. Even when they admit they stuffed me in that- that- that locker in front of you. So I'm leaving and not coming back," she said very quietly and very angrily.

The older woman looked like she had just been slapped and just watched as her student just walked out.

Taylor stopped at a payphone near the front office to call her dad at work.

"Taylor? Is something wrong?" Danny asked. "Do I need to pick you up?" He sounded slightly panicked.

"No. Not like that. I just found out that no one here will do anything, even when they heard the girls claim responsibility for assaulting me. So I'm going home. Maybe we can look at home study." Taylor leaned her forehead on the broken wall next to the old style wood cubby hole.

"We'll talk when we get home. This is starting to be criminally lenient." Danny's voice sounded very cold suddenly.

"I'll see you when you get off?" Taylor asked.

"Sure."

"Later," she said, then hung up.

She walked out the front door passing a startled teacher that was outside smoking in the cold and light snow.

"Hey! Get back to class," he yelled out, looking upset.

"I don't go to school here any more. And yes, my father does know," she shouted right back.

That stopped him. He nodded once as he got a better look.

The bus ride across town on the bus was fairly uneventful, filled with business suits and the occasional mother or father with small children. As she sat there, she scribbled as carefully as she could. She remembered a small snippet of a show that talked about spider silk and its strength. She jotted down some self defense ideas.

With her notepad under her arm, she exited in front of the Brockton Bay City Library that had barely opened.

The man at the check in desk sighed to himself as he saw her there. "Couldn't you wait an hour to be truant?" he asked with a half grin.

"I'm not going back to that school and I think my dad agrees. So I have the day off until we can figure something out," Taylor said quite sincerely.

The librarian shrugged. He'd call the truancy officer later if he remembered. Or cared, he thought to himself.

Taylor pulled up a browser and checked her email, only finding a vicious email sent from some dummy account of one of the trio. She archived it, not that it would do any good, then pulled up a web page to check on what she remembered about spider silk.

Better than she had thought, actually. Darwin Spider silk thread was stronger than regular silk and even kevlar by a high degree, nearly matching Carbon Longsynth.

Taylor took a moment to blink in surprise. Carbon Longsynth what? "Where did that come from." She narrowed her eyes. Not from her 'Rider' as she started to call her bug powers. She felt a small thought link to her Lens. On the other end lay a vast library of... the best way she could describe it was science. Advanced knowledge of engineering and how things worked.

And, even more weirdly, how to build it in your garage. She almost called to Student on Far Earth again, then stopped herself. She could not expect him to always answer. She needed to be smart enough to figure this out. But it was obvious that this knowledge was effectively Tinker technology. So very much not what she expected. She focused her mind on the concept of 'Carbon Longsynth' and started to absorb information about the synthetic molecule chain.

It was not the strongest, but it was the most easy for a pre-interstellar society to manufacture. The idle thought of a space ship flashed several things across her mind; inertialess drives, power plants and advanced computers and alloys all needed.

Nothing within her reach or even remotely possible for her to make

The warning that her computer session was about to time out jarred her out of her thoughts. She printed some information on spider-silk, then actually thought about a basic weaving loom. She logged out and started to scribble on her notebook on ideas for the 'kit bash' home unit for making Carbon Longsynth.

And then look at starting homeschooling, which ended up making her feel better. No more Winslow High, Emma Barnes or Sophia Hess and crew.

* * *

Her costume felt weird, Taylor decided a week later and late at night. She had added a soft cotton suit of padding, making the outfit fairly comfortable. For her feet, she added grips and padding from slippers. For her 'mask' she used swimming goggles lenses. The carapace armor ended up being a small deal made by her bugs and layers of the Carbon Longsynth. She had even had to take a long walk and have her bugs build small parts all around the neighborhood to get it done in time. That sped things up dramatically. She turned that into a jog after the first day, expanding her area. Her dad did buy her pepper spray to defend herself, worried about her being attacked.

That pepper spray ended up being her 'defense' weapon, though she did take a short rod of hardwood with the ends rounded. She had made a gauntlet on the back of her hands in case she needed to punch someone. Her belt pouch ended up including things things like zip-ties, a small flare, a penlight (that she probably wouldn't need, but just in case) and rubber gloves. She wanted an E-Pen in case of an allergic reaction, but ran out of funds quickly.

Her Lens was now in a special pocket that kept it pressed against the skin of her belly on her left side. She stretched out her bugs and her 'mind' powers to make sure her father was asleep and no one was around to see her depart.

She was effectively invisible in her mottled gray and black armor, her bugs and sense of minds allowing her to move around the groups of people still awake as she loped along towards the 'docks' section of town. The feeling of panic and fear cut through the night and she was moving.

Taylor cursed as she realized she must have been spotted, as a couple of mind flared in fear and wariness. Her insects were closer and started to arrive in greater and greater numbers. The two thugs started to swat at bugs only to suddenly realize that they were being swarmed.

Their cries of alarm started to become frantic as they tried to swat the flies and moths out in the cold. They both failed to hear the wheezing girl catch up. More bugs were arriving, but the cold was making them lethargic and they were actually dying faster.

Their victim, an older woman clutching three bags of groceries, was blinking in astonishment.

With a thought, she unleashed her bugs she had kept hidden and warm under her different panels of armor in hollow spaces. She tripped the one that tried to run there, putting his face into the cold concrete.

"You are under hero arrest. Put your hands behind your back and I'll pull my bugs back after you are cuffed. Do you understand?" she demanded. She kicked the flayingly, screaming figure on the ground next to her. "You're next."

"Anything! Just get them off!" the ABB thug demanded.

"Then hands behind your back," Taylor said. Idiot. She finally got his arms and legs trussed up and then turned to the next thug who let her tie him up without a struggle.

'Bastard did not tie me up tight enough.' The sense of glee was not even slightly visible on the first thug's face.

Taylor 'double-checked' his ties, pulling them slightly tighter, much to his frustration. Then back to the second one to double check him also.

'Damn, that's a creepy skitter,' the second thug thought as he saw her sidle sideways.

"Who are you?" the older woman asked. "You aren't a new villain, are you?"

"I just saved you from being mugged or worse and you think I'm a villain?" Taylor asked, nonplussed.

"You are wearing some dark colors to be a hero," the victim noted. "Wouldn't be the first time someone 'saved me' to ask for protection money."

"No, I'm a hero." Taylor was quite firm in that.

"I ain't never heard of you. What's yer name?" the older woman asked in her soft Boston burr of an accent.

"Skitter," she said as she thought of what one of the thugs had thought. "And I just started. Hey, could you call the cops?"

"Can't afford a phone. But that boy had one," she said, pointing at the first thug.

"Thanks." She pulled it out and then unlocked it. Dialing 911, she waited for an answer. "I would like to report an attempted mugging and a citizens arrest. Two men, tied up by a parahuman."

"Where are you located at?" the dispatcher asked.

"Tenth and Bradley, in between Sturmon's Metals and Till's Pawn shop. I'll leave the phone with the victim." With that, 'Skitter' added and handed the phone to the woman and then disappeared into the back alleys.


	3. Lensman Skitter of Earth 1-3

Taylor was bored. Not bored enough to want to go back to Winslow, though her dad was filing charges against the school for criminal neglect and breach of contract. That did get the principal fired and cops talking to people. One of the stipulations for the Hebert's not suing the school district was that they would do an honest 'best effort' to deal with the bullying. (Taylor had not caught that the first time).

Their lawyer was hammering them pretty hard, she guessed. Not that it would help her, but it did get them to pay for her home schooling supplies and testing.

She tapped the rubber end of her pencil on the paper where she had just finished a self test for the last subject for her junior year. A year that she had breezed through incredibly fast. She even now had a used computer to do her basic programming studying on and had very basic Internet access. She suspected that Student on Far Earth had done a little extra fixing than 'just' her trauma. But she did not feel like confronting him on that, as she did not want to lose this ability now that she had it.

Another difference was that she now had her own cell phone. And a prepaid backup cell phone that she called the cops from and removed the battery when she was home. (It's home address was the PRT headquarters in Brockton Bay.)

Skitter had been playing cat and mouse with the ABB and Empire Eighty Eight thugs ever since. They had even sent a few capes she had found out with her telepathy. So she had avoided their traps entirely or had 'just not gone out' that night. They were, in a word, unhappy.

Her telepathy had progressed nicely, as she actually had a decent range now that was at least as far as the city limits, though she was not able to get a lot of information at long range. But she could feel the surface thoughts on people she did know at quite a far distance. For instance, she could tell her father was having his lunch break at work, because he was happily chatting with some coworkers about the most recent ballgame.

That was when the Endbringer sirens started wailing. They only went for two minutes and then cut off. Taylor had the family TV turned on to the local stations as it started to explain that Simurgh was attacking the capital of Australia and their national super team had specifically requested assistance from the Protectorate and other national super teams.

Local capes, heroes and villains, were directed to go to the local PRT headquarters for transportation.

Taylor sat staring at the screen as it started to repeat the message. Then she wrote two quick letters. One she left on the table saying that she was going to be gone for a day or so to 'clear her head' and the one she folded and put under pillow.

That one said she had gone out as a hero to fight the Endbringer and she may not be home. She listed her 'hero name' and that he should contact the PRT to see if she was still fine.

Then she put on all of her gear. Her body suit and armor. She did keep the exact change out for the bus fare out. Then added her club into a slot on her back armor plate. Finally she pulled on her mask.

Sending out her mind, only one older woman on the street might see her. Two flies started to buzz around her, distracting her so she did not see Skitter disappear into the trees and bushes behind her house. She stepped out at the end of the street and walked up to the bus stop just as it was pulling up.

"Transfer please," she said politely as she put in her bills and coins.

Everyone, including the bus driver, stared at her. The driver finally blinked and handed her the transfer.

"Um, are you trying to go volunteer for that Endbringer attack?" the driver asked as he pulled out onto the street.

"Yes," Skitter replied.

"Let me call to get the PRT to pick you up." The bus driver grabbed her handset and clicked to start. "I've got a Parahuman on bus A210 that is wanting to volunteer for the Endbringer attack. Can I get a priority pickup. I'm just passing Hamilton and 19th."

"Roger. PRT is informed, they will be sending a car immediately," the overhead crackled back.

Five minutes later, a PRT car with lights and a siren going pulled in front.

"Um, thanks," she said the driver.

"No, thank you. Good luck, kid."

With that, the PRT plainclothes officer broke every speed record to make it to the headquarters where an advanced jet of some sort was on the ground. Skitter dashed over to the entrance and stairs, being guided by a ground crew.

"Who the hell are you?" a rough looking woman in the PRT chain and plate armor said.

"Skitter. New hero," she yelled back.

"Prove you have a power before I chuck you out on your ass, kid- Ah, bug controller? Okay, that's good," the officer shouted back as Skitter had her bugs come out, fly around and then slip back into the hidden cavities of her armor.

Skitter headed back a bit and got her first look at the heroes. Armsmaster was studying her intently from his seat on a canvas bench, his look inscrutable under the pointed visor of his helmet. Next to him was Miss Militia, the new second in command of the local Protectorate. The duo of Battery and Assault were looking at her curiously from what she could see.

The bench on the far side had a few 'kids' there. The dark red and black of Aegis's outfit was unmistakable, while the armored Vista nodded to her.

"New hero?" Armsmaster shouted out over the roar of the engines as the jet lifted into the air.

"Right. I'm Skitter." She grabbed a handhold and sat next to Vista. "Hi."

"Are you that hero that has been upsetting the ABB and Empire Eighty-Eight down on the docks for a few weeks? You've done a pretty good job of catching them red handed. We've managed to keep a few of them off the streets. And one was willing to squeal so he didn't have to deal with scary bug hero," Miss Militia called out.

"Should I go up front and speed up the trip?" Vista called out.

"Wait another few minutes for us to get to cruising speed," Armsmaster called out.

Vista nodded even as she kicked her legs in impatience.

The trip was going to be much shorter after Vista went up to the cockpit and started compressing the space in the air in front of the airplane.

"That's a pretty amazing power," Skitter said as she listened to the updated ETA.

"You control bugs? Any tricks?" Aegis asked curiously.

"I've got a pretty big range. Over nine thousand feet and I know way too much about bugs from it," Skitter explained.

Aegis whistled at that. "You give them general orders or-?"

"Full control, but out of sight is harder to understand what is going on. So usually just line of sight it. Wish I could have gotten a different power." And she really was glad for the Lens.

Some reading up had let her know she was the only telepath on the planet other than the Simurgh itself. Skitter had even found a note that a suspected telepath had been tortured to death by villains to make sure he did not read their minds.

The tragedy is that he just had a Thinker power and a discerning empathy, which was a bit more common. So he had 'faked' having telepathy for a bit of notoriety and to put his enemies off balance.

That had led her to decide to not reveal she had mental powers as herself; Skitter or Taylor.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Aegis asked.

"Oh, just thinking of what I can do to help. I'm not sure bugs are going to be much help against an Endbringer," she said truthfully.

Vista came skipping down the from the cockpit. "We had to slow down when we got within about two hundred miles. So we'll be landing in about twenty minutes, behind a couple of other planes."

Everyone nodded. Skitter started reaching out, sensing the mass fear and panic up ahead. And The Simurgh up ahead at the center as it built devices while almost effortless dodging or blocking attacks with its telekinesis. The budding telepath narrowed her eyes, as she got a sense of the very alien mind. It was like a Rider, like her own, but given orders and not connected to a human. It also seemed to be more aware and able to process more than her own Rider could.

And totally open to telepathic scrutiny. After five minutes and studying the strange mind, she came to the realization that The Simurgh was not only playing with them, she was faking telepathy. All she had was precognition and postcognition, inorganic heavy telekinesis and a hidden very subtle Bio-Tinker power that could only affect people at the cellular level within a quarter mile.

It was all a game of dominos and the heroes were the tiles. And the heroes did not know, they were all operating in the dark. And with Simurgh's precognition, she had to act carefully in such a way that she could not be revealed.

So, time for 'Operation Wajpuzz'. A totally separate identity that would only communicate by telepathy.

She scanned through the minds, trying to find a mind not immediately in the direct conflict. With a slight thrill in her heart, she realized that Alexandria was currently in the command post at the airport discussing things with other leaders.

'Library of Alexandria, I am Pupil of Earth. I bear important information of a critical nature!' Skitter sent in a bombastic, slightly over the top way that Student on Far Earth used. And hey, she remembered the heroine's original name.

Far off, she could tell that Alexandria had flinched.

'Ah, I sense your fear. Put your mind at ease, as I am not The Simurgh playing a game with your head. For one, you are far beyond its range. And for the second, The Simurgh is not a telepath.'

A very focused thought returned to her, 'What do you mean?' It was quite demanding.

'The Simurgh emulates telepathy with a bio-tinker power , altering minds and their brain chemistry, all the while setting up trigger situations that she foresees with her precognition. In fact, it is her only sense of perception. So the only ones that are immune to her abilities are beings that heal any damage, even brain damage or block all changes to the brain. In fact, the 'singing' that the Simurgh does is by agitating the receptors in your cochlea directly. The Simurgh is currently setting up several long term gambits by effectively implementing hypnotic triggers for certain situations. This will require great thought on how to disable.'

Skitter waited for her to absorb the sudden information she had just brought up, as it suddenly made Alexandria worry a lot. As she waited, Skitter wondered if she could remove that sort of compulsion.

'I need to meet you,' Alexandria demanded, worry overlaying her thoughts.

'As long as The Simurgh exists, that will likely be impossible. It might be able to see myself in meeting you. So at this point I must decline and be a voice of caution from a far distance.' Skitter suddenly sensed that the Simurgh was planning on removing what it felt was a dangerous parahuman, setting him up to be killed with a weapon it was starting to build. It would appear to be a random death, but would cause a great deal of issues among the villains in Sidney. Hundreds dead and weakening the heroes and villains of the city.

The Outbandit was about to step out of cover and run to the left, just as he always did. He looked around the corner of the building he was behind to see the many-winged monster floating only three hundred feet away down the street. Her song was annoying, as always. He was also nearing his cut off time. He hated fighting flying things in the dark. And it was too hot, even at night.

That was when he heard a voice yell to him, 'Stay under cover if you want to live!'

"Thanks, cobber!" he called out quickly, not even realizing that there was no one close to him. He hunkered down while looking around the corner and the Simurgh suddenly turned in his direction, seemingly studying him through the wall. The Outbandit narrowed his eyes behind his full black face mask even as he raised a wall of dirt in front of him and increased its density a dozen times, making it harder than any known metal. He actually had some dirt packed away in his leather duster and battered hat that he could do the same with in an emergency.

The general floating weapons that the Simurgh had made tried to vaporize him, only to be deflected and blocked. The Endbringer had to cut off its attack as the heroes had rallied and managed to take out over half of its Tinker design weapons. Including the ones that it had been building that would have bounced a well timed explosive into Outbandit's back.

A powerful blast from Eidolon ripped off a chunk of The Simurgh's right shoulder, forcing it to take action as it had to start looking down different paths with its senses.

The high speed transport that all of the Brockton Bay capes were on was preparing to land in just five minutes. Skitter was tapping her toe fairly fast.

"Don't worry, they'll probably have you do search and rescue. At least we don't have to try and charge her head on," Vista said, misinterpreting her worry.

"Thanks," Skitter said. Her mind was elsewhere. While she was quite capable of tripping up Simurgh's plans, it would be obvious to the precognitive that someone was behind it. So it was time to see if she could do what no other cape had ever done.

Find out why they kept attacking. 'Excuse me, Simurgh? I am Pupil of Earth and I wish to understand why you are attacking humans on this planet!' As always, she used a 'male' tone and some of the bombastic wording that Student on Far Earth.

The Simurgh suddenly launched into the air as it burned a lot of power too fast, trying to find the person that was somehow talking to it.

'I do know you can understand me. Your crude methods of trying to track my body down when I am far beyond your reach are, at best, a waste of resource,' Skitter continued, trying to dig deeper. Hmm. The Endbringers appeared to be designed strictly for fighting, being almost impossible to kill. In fact, they sort of reminded her of the mental state of a well trained dog-

The Simurgh suddenly wrapped its three man wings about it and then shot into the air so fast that the closest heroes next to it were caught in its updraft as it hit the speed of sound in one hundred feet.

Legend, Eidolon and other flyers were quick to catch people before they died from falling back to the ground, but everyone was wondering what had happened. The Simurgh had never retreated so fast with so little damage done to it before.

Outbandit's timer went off. He took a sidelong look at the armband over his duster's sleeve. "You were suppose ta give me a thirty second warnin', yoos damn contraption."

A small cheer went up as it was confirmed that the Simurgh had headed up into low orbit.

'And all I did was try to talk to him. Truly, it is little more than a robot,' Pupil of Earth telepathed to Alexandria plaintively. 'Perhaps next time I can discern more of the Endbringers and how they relate to the Riders.'

"You scared off The Simurgh by trying to communicate to it?" Alexandria asked softly in amazement, just ever so slightly too loud so that the two nearest people heard her.

'That does appear to be essentially correct. Well, as the threat has departed, I too will take myself away. Until later, Library of Alexandria,' Skitter telepathed even as the VTOL bumped softly down on its landing wheels.

Armsmaster put a hand to his right ear for a second. "I have a status update. The Simurgh was just driven off."

"What!?" two kids yelled out in surprise, one kid in fake surprise and one adult (Assault) loudly.

"We still need to help out. They are looking to quarantine a large group of people and we need to keep them from trying to escape," Miss Militia said as they all stood up to go to the hatch and the deploying ladder.

That put a dampener on all of them. The engines were winding down as they were directed to the large school gym for the university. People were running around.

"-losses were small. Only fourteen capes need to be quarantined and none are trumps-" they heard as a snatch of conversation.

"-so just explain what you mean, Alexandria," Legend was saying as the Triumvirate walked quickly past to where the rest of the leadership of the was gathering.

"Armsmaster, with me. Some startling new information has come to light," Alexandria ordered. "And I will, but with all the team leaders of the Protectorate."

Skitter looked over, but decided that using her telepathy around those heroes might be a touch incautious. After all, Eidolon had the power to have any three powers. He might spot her, even if she was careful!

* * *

Along with the Triumvirate were five other leaders of major Protectorate teams. Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Brockton Bay and San Diego. The figure of Dragon loomed overhead, awaiting to hear the information.

"I was contacted mid-battle by a man called Pupil of Earth, who informed me that The Simurgh, despite our best minds looking into the matter, is not a telepath," she began with.

"That seems unlikely," Myrddin said as he leaned on his 'wizard's staff'.

"That's what I thought, until it explained that it uses its precognition to use a bio-tinker power to manipulate the brain to set up pre-planned situations and mental triggers. And that the 'sound' we hear is actually it using that power on our cochlea. All while talking to me when no one else could even hear or see anyone," she explained as she looked between the different hero leaders.

Legend frowned as he thought it over. "Seems convoluted."

"He then complained after The Simurgh left that all he was trying to do was to converse with it and find out why it was attacking." She looked around at the other eight heroes. "Pupil of Earth also mentioned that he believed the Endbringers are related to the source of our powers."

That got everyone to look at her in shock.

"The reason the Endbringer retreated, is because a real telepath was trying to talk to it?" Eidolon said in a low, almost angry voice. And it knew about the passengers?

"So a real telepath has finally been found," Dragon mused aloud, her voice distorted by her 'armor'. It creaked as it settled back on its mechanistic haunches.

"We had put it to our best thinkers in the past. Not one real telepath, ever. We thought it impossible with all our research. But I just finished communicating with several trusted Thinkers in an emergency conference. They rate that Pupil of Earth and the information that the Smirugh is misdirecting us as quite high. That would dovetail with that one cape that showed up a couple of years ago that was deaf and could not 'hear' the Smirugh. He died only a week later due to an accident he caused. We thought was because he did not know what sound and singing was, as he was born deaf... But if The Simurgh ran into a real telepath when it actually isn't one-" she drew out at the end for emphasis.

"It would retreat, as all of its secrets might be revealed. And quite possibly why it retreated so impossibly fast. A real threat that it could not defend against had arrived," Armsmaster said. "I have some ideas to make a device that might be able to scan a brain to see if a Bio-Tinker power was used on it. It may not work on old changes, but it would allows us to take a quick scan before battle and then confirm if something has been changed afterwards."

"Yes. And because of that, our Thinkers are rating a real path to victory here to remove the different cities from quarantine." Alexandria saw Legend and Eidolon come to an understanding of her hidden message. If Contessa actually saw a path to defusing The Simurgh's 'bombs' then they could free up a lot of resources.

That got a cheer from the excitable Fierion of San Diego. "That's fucking awesome! So when do we get to meet this hero?"

"That, sadly, is a tricky affair. It appears Pupil thinks that The Simurgh may be able to ferret out his identity. I got the impression that he is mental only in powers, so if Simurgh figures out who he is, he is likely to receive a visit. A fatal one, likely.

That got a nod from everyone. They then turned back to other matters.


	4. Lensman Skitter of Earth 1-4

Taylor had made it back that night, giving her father an explanation that she needed to get out of the house a bit. So she had taken a long walk about. It took a bit to calm him. Especially since her 'grades' were suddenly very good. Too good, she thought again to herself suspiciously. She laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling for a very long time.

'Student of Far Earth?' finally, in an impulse, she telepathed out in the wee hours of that morning.

'Pupil of Earth, I am here,' the mind sent back immediately.

'What did you do to my brain?' she demanded.

'Ah, you have noticed the increase in cogitation and your ability to learn faster than you thought was possible. It appears I was not specifically explicit in my previous explanation. While we corrected your trauma after your 'Trigger Event' we repaired what we saw were serious issues that went back to your treatment during your schooling. We considered this something to 'repair' also, putting your mind at a reasonable level of ability. This would be something that you humans will come to understand in the next few centuries. This level of your mind is necessary for the trials that lay before you.'

'So you brainwashed me?' she asked suspiciously.

The emotion that the Arisian was giving her of great forbearance. 'Quite the opposite. While your mind is now keen and strong, you must learn and discover your own abilities. And then hone your mind ever further. No loyalty has been imprinted upon you.'

Taylor really wasn't sure she believed him.

'We will converse later. Please use your Lens next time, so that it will be easier to have a long conversation. It is not so easy communicating with you until you have further progressed in your mental studies,' Student said to her. It was abruptly gone.

Taylor blinked, then realized she had left her lens under her pillow. But she could still feel her father's sleeping mind- Suddenly she realized what Mentor and Student had said that first time. It only amplified mental powers. She could actually leave the Lens behind in an emergency.

That made her feel much better. Because if it was her own power, then that meant she was not just using a mind reading machine.

* * *

Skitter had a grin on her face, not that you could see it under her full mask. She waved to the little robot drone above her in the dark alley that her bugs had spotted. It bobbed and then took off. It was fairly obvious in retrospect, but she must be one of the parahumans that they thought might be the mysterious Pupil of Earth.

And it was known semi-publically that Dragon was looking for the mysterious 'person of interest' that had driven off The Simurgh. Not one mention of telepathy, but she and the Protectorate were definitely looking for her. So she had taken to limiting her telepathy to the range of her tripled bug control (which was over three kilometers out... normally. It varied dependent on her 'feelings'. She had been able to trick her Rider to almost double it again, but left that as another ace up her sleeve.)

Some bugs up the block at the seedy convenience store that the Empire Eighty-Eight 'owned' suddenly went blind and deaf. Skitter blinked behind her improved goggles that were flash resistant and enhanced low light situations. She turned and started to move through the back alleys, being careful of a trap or ambush. Even as she moved, her bugs were moving into the darkness, allowing her to see what was going on fairly quickly as her insects found two people by the cash register. The larger one knocked the smaller one down and started to do something to the teller machine to get it to open.

Strangely, the manager had not been scared, but just mad. Not even surprised.

She did not expect to see the inside of store swallowed up in darkness. So this must be the villain, Grue. Bugs were still sweeping in from blocks around when the darkness started to bulge and move out the back door. This was both good and bad.

There were no innocents to be caught in the crossfire, but it caught Skitter in its inky blackness as she was only twenty feet away. Grue appeared to be a fairly strong young man wearing some sort of helmet, with very little (if any) exposed skin according to her bugs. Skitter had actually had to deal with this issue, as a few enterprising ABB thugs had tried to fight her by wearing fully covering clothing and bee netting that they could pull over their heads.

He did stop in (apparent) surprise, as he suddenly found himself engulfed in a huge swarm of bugs. Now they were both equally 'blind'. Flies worked in groups to lethargically fly through the almost too cold air with long strings of spider silk from little spools of thread in her belt and backpack armor. (The Carbon Longsynth spools were her 'emergency trump' for tying up stronger villains) She directed them to tie them around his wrists and then swing around in front of his torso and then back past his waist, making loops as they flew along through the thick air.

Skitter's grip-textured gloves then grabbed looped strands behind him even as she pulled them tight. A kick to the knees felled him as more bugs started to loop and tie his legs together and his arms to his side. He was very strong and almost pulled his arms loose as he wriggle.

It was a long, five minute struggle until Grue could no longer do much more than wiggle.

"You should really give up before I have to knock you out," Skitter said rhetorically into the cloying darkness. "I'd probably hurt you more than I intended-"

The darkness suddenly disappeared.

"-the hell?"

"God-damn-fuck. I had to run into The Skitter," Grue complained from the ground. "How did you even know I was robbing that place? I made sure that my darkness didn't leak outside." His flexing muscles were only causing the threads to bite painfully into his flesh, so he had stopped.

"It's just Skitter. I was close by when your darkness blinded and deafened my bugs." Bweep-baap-baap. "I would like to report the capture of the criminal named Grue who had been robbing a store. I think. Beaumont and 8th."

She waited for the PRT to arrive (only ten minutes) and then disappeared done the back alley, feeling the hate that Grue was feeling towards her.

That should be enough for the night. She jogged home in a well practiced manner, avoiding anyone spotting her nearly invisible figure. Her father was still asleep as she crept up to her room silently. It took ten minutes to put her superhero gear into the old hard suitcase and slide it back under her bed (and far back). The only thing she kept out was her energy pistol. It was locked down in stun mode, actually requiring her to use some insects to crawl into it and switch it from the safety mode. The little pistol looked like something you would see in an old Buck Rogers show, but far more functional.

Taylor took her Lens out and held it as she lay down in bed. She cast her mind out. Good, Armsmaster was still awake-

The feeling he was giving off were not good.

* * *

"Are you sure I'm not needed, Dragon?" Armsmaster said to the person on the viewscreen. Other view screens had newsmen and women talking, while there was a general map of New York State.

"There's not enough time without a teleporter. Legend is on site with me, along with the four local heroes. Ithaca does not have nor need a large super team. They aren't even official Protectorate, you know. But this is their town and they are working with the police to try and find this madman," Dragon explained.

"What's the tally?" he asked in a flat voice.

"Five dead, thirteen wounded and Cornell University has taken millions of dollars of damage. And five minutes until another bomb goes off," Dragon said bitterly.

Dragon was sending her drones out to try and find them, but they were invisible to Taylor's telepathic sense. The large being itself could be sensed, but it was not human. She wanted to spend a moment to puzzle that out, but first she had to find the bomber, then figure out the location of the bomb.

So many active minds, all focused on the time.

But only one of them was satisfied and happy. The woman was still in the school dormitory, watching out the windows like so many other. Outwardly, she looked just as worried about the bomb that was underneath the fountain... only twenty feet away from the nearest PRT troopers and eighty feet from the emergency situation base.

'This is Pupil of Earth!' Taylor telepathed to Dragon and Legend. 'The bomb is in the fountain due north of your location and only eighty feet away!'

Dragon and Legend had both stopped at that, then Legend launched into the sky.

Speakers on the large, quadruped armor snapped out. "All PRT and Protectorate personnel are to report to me immediately!" She then lumbered at a slight angle away. "This is not a drill. We have been informed of a suspect and will be moving out immediately."

"Pupil of Earth? Where is the bomber?" Legend demanded as his dark blue suit made him nearly invisible in the black sky.

'Please wait for the last people to move out of its radius. The bomber only suspects that we have discovered the location of the bomb, which she can trigger at any time,' Taylor explained in the overly bombastic male tone she used for her Pupil persona.

"Everyone is clear. We swept that area for bombs. How did it slip through?" the irate leader of the New York Protectorate half asked himself.

'It is a space-implosion device that crudely makes a gravity point as powerful as the surface of a black hole for a femtosecond. Luckily it is very small and crude, only has the explosive power of two hundred pounds of TNT.'

"Only?" he asked in bemusement.

'Luckily, she seems limited by her supplies. It could be used to destroy continents if used incorrectly,' Taylor sent simply. 'Everyone is clear. She is the Asian girl on the third floor of the girl's dormitory nine hundred feet to the south of you.'

Legend rotated around mid air. "With the blue eyes?"

'You can see that? But yes, that is her,' Pupil of Earth replied in a slightly startled tone. Taylor would have to remember that Legend had super-eyesight. Was that even a power?

The living embodiment of the 'blaster' concept unleashed a fulisade at the totally surprised young woman. She only had a split second of shock before ten stun beams took her and her roommate out.

"Stand away from the windows!" He ordered as he flew up to the dormitory. He slipped in the window. "Pupil of Earth, I hope you have some proof that she was the bomber."

'She is in possession of a computer in her jacket pocket that she can use to trigger it. It is not obviously tinker design, but once Dragon looks at it more closely she can verify that it is not a normal device,' Pupil of Earth explained.

"That will work."

The space-time implosion rocked the area as it unleashed it destructive power.

'I must be off to bed, as I have schooling to attend to in the morning,' Pupil said and then pulled back. She was tired and she did have to get up to start her self study.

* * *

Legend frowned at his computer screen, going over everything that they knew of Pupil of Earth.

First the name. It pointed towards a couple of different things. That Pupil felt he was connected to the whole Earth, like a New Age mysticism. Yet it would be the only hint of that philosophy. The second possible meaning is that it was literal, that Pupil was of Earth. But why the distinction, as there were no aliens that he knew of? Too vague to get a good fact out of.

Pupil of Earth was a telepath. The only known telepath on the planet. He had to come to Australia, so his range was smaller than the Earth. Yet he had not mentioned having to travel this last time. Which indicated that he was in the near area. The distance though, that was the problem. Ten miles? A hundred? Hundreds?

Dragon had a note that among the suspected people, that the range could be anywhere from just five miles to over two hundred. The high end was worrying, as his telepathy reading or finding ability was invisible. The bomber had not even realized that she had been found out.

Luckily, Pupil of Earth was able to be surprised. His lack of understanding Legend's own powers indicated that he was not all-knowing, at least. So was unlikely to be just snooping on special Triumvirate business.

With a sigh, he stood up. "Door," he called out.

He stepped through the portal into one of Cauldron's most secure facilities. He nodded to the shimmer as he passed The Custodian. A simple door down the hall allowed entry into a plain conference room, similar to many across the Earth. Or any Earth.

"Good to see you again, Legend," Doctor Mother said in her calm way. "I hope you have something tell us about this impossibility."

Legend nodded. "Well, at least we're able to infer things. Our telepath is not omniscient, as he was surprised by how good my eyesight was. He does appear to be based in North America and probably in the New England area."

Alexandria tilted her head as if to ask a question. "So it's most likely either Two-Gun Tango, Skitter, Rockship or Mettlemore?"

"Mettlemore was killed last week," Legend noted as a clarification.

"So only four new people that were in the range of both events and could be hiding powers," Eidolon said as he through the list. "Only Skitter is a Master."

"Bugs though. And the telepathic power could actually be from some device," the leader of Cauldron intuited.

The Number Man nodded at that, but he was surprised when the last member of Cauldron spoke up.

"I find it unlikely to be a device. The steps to create a mind reading and projection device will take ten years," Contessa said as she mentally winced at the fifty-thousand odd steps. "Which does mean its possible, but that this Pupil of Earth is unlikely to be using it."

"Well, I guess that answers if mechanical telepathy is possible," Legend mused aloud.

That got a chuckle out of them.

"She's being rather cagey, using a male voice mentally." Alexandria was thinking hard about the issue. "Why so paranoid?"

"The Simurgh," Eidolon decided out loud.

"Telepaths do have a stigma attached to them. There have been dozens or reports of different Thinkers pretending to be telepaths for a psychological edge. I'm just glad that the first real one we have seems to be a good guy. Or gal," Legend said, his smile evident in his voice.

"We can't be sure of that," Doctor Mother noted.

"We can't be sure of anything," the leader of the Protectorate noted in a bland voice.

"Dragon is already keeping Skitter under surveillance as best as possible, but her bug control powers make that harder than expected." The female Triumvirate sounded moderately annoyed by that fact.

"And it's possible that he is actually a Stranger-Master combo," the Number Man noted. "We shouldn't be too certain about such a slippery character as Pupil."

"I'm going to direct Armsmaster to make contact with Skitter and confront her on possibly being Pupil of Earth. We'll need to continue our other lines of investigation on other possibilities," Alexandria said firmly.

Everyone nodded at that part.


	5. Lensman Skitter of Earth 1-5

Skitter was looking through her bugs at a pair of real pieces of work that ran drugs for the Empire Eighty-Eight from over two blocks away. They were really badly placed for their drug deals though.

She was starting to get a bad feeling, but only started gather and to move her insects around to try and see if anyone was trying to ambush her. So the impact of a high powered bullet hitting her in the chest was a total surprise. She was knocked back five feet and went down, feeling like someone had kicked her.

Someone like a very angry mule.

From the angle of her insects that had been disturbed by, she had been shot from one of the high rises downtown, over a mile away. Dimly she felt several figures coming out of buildings or cars in the area. She quickly crawled behind the cover of an air conditioner on the roof. While it wouldn't stop a bullet, her chance of getting hit was at least a bit smaller.

So yeah, trap. Time to gather more swarms. Luckily it was March finally, so there were a lot more insects in the air, but that might not be enough to save her. Because she had three people headed her way very quickly.

Hookwolf was leaping from the road to the roof, tearing up tar and gravel as he rushed to her position in under twenty second. Stormtiger beat him, but it was the third one that was trapping her. According to her Paranet profile she shouldn't be able to fly, but Crickett set down behind her from a short flight.

"Skitter. I'm actually surprised you are still conscious," Hookwolf said as he casually walked the last bit almost daintily in his huge, lupine form.

"Is- this the point when you warn me off your gang?" Skitter asked as she frantically tried to figure out a solution to her desperate position. It appeared she would have to use some trumps.

"We're going to put you into the hospital with that warning, yes. Come back and we'll kill you," the enforcer of the Empire Eighty-Eight said smugly.

"I'll extend the same consideration then," she replied as she dropped her gathering swarms on these three and the sniper that she had tracked down. Her pistol dropped into her hand from its concealed compartment on her back carapace as her insects freed it from its threads.

Stormtriger started swearing as he sent bursts of air to swirl around him to decent effect, while Cricket was doing something that knocked the insects closest to her out. The only one really unaffected was Hookwolf, who snarled angrily and then started to walk towards her. He crouched down to leap onto her to finish her off when she pointed a very odd looking pistol at him.

The night rooftop turned to day as the high intensity Bergenholm particle beam shot through the center mass of the enforcer, instantly turning his metal blades into highly energetic plasma and kicked him back thirty feet. Skitter had been very careful to not hit his actual body parts inside, but he was definitely out and not able to fight for at least a few minutes.

"Holy shit? She a fucking Tinker?" Stormtiger shouted out as he saw his immediate commander just get blasted and taken out. He rushed her, ignoring the insects for just a second. It was actually getting hard to see anything as more insects than he had ever seen in his life. He could smell her, but that wasn't good enough to fight blind.

Bugs squished under his booted feet, losing him traction as Skitter slammed her small escrima stick into his stomach. He reacted instantly with twin air blasts, but that only cleared the insects off of her and only staggered her for a second.

Then the bugs returned, biting him everywhere. Cricket was doing better, but she seemed almost as blinded as Stormtiger was.

"Retreat!" Stormtiger yelled, running for the rooftop edge, using his aerokinesis to boost his speed.

Cricket flew out as fast as she could, heading to a safehouse down the street where bug bombs were primed to go off and several gasmasks prepared.

"What's going on down there?" a voice called out from above Skitter.

"Um, I just ran off some Empire Eighty-Eight capes?" Ow, she was still in a decent amount of pain. Luckily she felt no hostile intentions from him as she continued direct all of the spiders in her swarm to truss up Hookwolf. She parted the bugs around her, making a tubular area around her empty.

"Skitter, right? Sheesh, I had no idea you could control this many bugs," Dauntless said as he floated down to the ground next to her.

"And you are Dauntless. Nice to meet you. I'm glad my armor was up to the task of taking that bullet." She ran her gloved hand over her chestpiece, only to blink as she found the large bullet embedded on the right, upper part of her torso. "That's a big bullet."

The other hero leaned forward. "Um, probably .50 caliber. Didn't even break through? That's some very nice armor. What's it made of?"

"Spidersilk, chitin shells and some really tough resins baked to the right temperatures in layers," Skitter lied a bit, as it was made of Carbon Longsynth and very advanced resins in very specific lattice formations.

"Are you okay, otherwise? I can fly you to the PRT headquarters to get looked over by a professional. We are totally discreet and never ask you to remove your mask, of course," the official Protectorate explained.

"Maybe someplace I check the hit myself? Do you need to call someone about Hookwolf? I have him just about thoroughly trussed up right now in spider silk over there," she said, pointing at a section of the roof through her swarms.

"You... captured Hookwolf?" Dauntless asked in shock.

"Well, I shot him first, but that's because he was about to rip me to pieces. My armor might be pretty good, but I doubt it's that good," Skitter admitted.

"Well, damn. Let me call this in."

* * *

Skitter finished putting on her armor after checking the pretty hefty bruise she had on her upper right chest and shoulder. That was going to suck later. Luckily, with her mental control, she could just suppress pain of this level.

She opened the door of the private hospital room and stepped out. "Um, I see that some more people have shown up.

Dauntless chuckled as he waved a nurse back to her station. "Some of the Wards were close enough and they wanted to meet you. This is Vista, Gallant and Shadow Stalker."

The young solo hero already knew that, as she'd been keeping track of anyone coming close. Discovering that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker almost had her seeing red. It took her five minutes to calm down and raise her mental barriers back up.

"Hi?"

"Is that... normal for you?" Gallant asked a bit curiously.

"Is what?" she asked, deliberately obtuse in her question.

"The no emotions thing?" the empath continued on with.

"Oh, I sort of dump my emotions into my insects," she again lied. No need to out herself as a telepath that easily.

The elevator dinged down the hall and around the corner. And around said corner walked the very imposing armored figure of Armsmaster, his halberd collapsed and on his back. "Oh, good. I managed to get here before you left. I understand that we have you to thank for capturing Hookwolf?

"No way? Bug girl captured an A list villain like that? I thought Officer Luis was shitting me," Shadow Stalker said in surprise. She turned and looked back at Skitter with her blank facemask, as if re-evaluating her.

"Really?" Vista asked curiously. "I wouldn't think bugs would do much to him?"

"I tinker a bit. And I have a ray gun for really desperate situations. Being shot by a sniper and jumped by three Empire capes counted as desperate in my eyes," Skitter explained. Shit, Armsmaster had a lie detector in his helmet? "I'm glad I didn't accidentally kill him."

"Glad to hear that. In that case, I would definitely not count it as excessive force. Usually it's quite the other way around," the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate explained. "Everyone, if you will excuse us, I would like to have a private discussion here with Skitter."

"Aww, I wanted to chat with the badass girl that took Hookwolf down," Vista complained.

"That's enough, you three. If you aren't supposed to be on patrol, clean up and head home," Armsmaster ordered. "This way, please."

Skitter followed, carefully getting an idea of what was going on with him. Ordered to confront her about being Pupil of Earth? How the hell had they figured that out? Oh, just suspected because of timing. Drat. "So what's going on?" she asked as she followed him into a small conference room that was used by the medical staff at times.

"Just some questions, if you don't mind. The Protectorate and the PRT has been desperately trying to track down a new cape. A telepath, in fact. The one that scared off the Simurgh. We need to find out if he was able to find out any more information. Even just finding out that the Simurgh isn't an actual telepath has helped quite a bit. Instead of trying to stop a nonexistent attack, we can start to develop an actual shield against its powers." Armsmaster was quite proud of his contributions on that project with the other Protectorate affiliated capes. Dragon believed that she would have an actual production model to test the next time the Simurgh showed up.

"Oh, I'm a telepath, I guess. I just use my mind to control my bugs, after all. It's all their physical ability that I'm controlling," Skitter admitted.

"Can you control anything other than bugs?" he asked insistently.

"Well, its kind of stupid, but I can control worms. And crabs and lobsters in the ocean. But I'm pretty sure that's never going to be that handy. I can even perfectly control my spiders to weave spider-silk clothing," she admitted with pride that she didn't have to fake at all. And she hasn't lied at all yet.

That got a rueful shake of his head. "You are probably right about the worms and crustaceans thing. So you are a Tinker, too? I have to admit, that was quite the surprise to us all."

"I have this ability see designs that I can build in my garage. It's pretty interesting, but I don't have a lot of the equipment I need for some of the better stuff I think I can build." Damn, this was hard to have him only ask obliquely so she could safely never have to admit to being a Telepath. She was starting to sweat from the mental effort.

Armsmaster frowned as he picked up a lie on her first sentence. Why lie about anything like that? Ah, his smart system weighed it 80 % probable that she was lying about location. "Well, that's part of why we try to recruit tinkers into the Protectorate, Wards and the PRT when possible. We have a lot of resources that help Tinkers like you and I."

"I don't think I'm cut out for the Wards right now, sorry. I might join the Protectorate when I turn eighteen," Skitter replied truthfully.

"We can get you an official PRT issued phone. In case we need to contact you?"

"I've got a phone that I use just for patrolling. How about I give you the phone number for that?" she countered. She did not want to owe the PRT for anything.

"That could work. I think we have that one. For some reason, it's address is listed here at the PRT headquarters. Don't worry, we didn't do much more than verify it was a prepaid phone, but you should see about getting an unlisted one at some point. Even phone purchases could be traced by the unscrupulous," he pointed out, still trying to press the issue that they had something to offer her.

"I'll take it under advisement," Skitter said flatly.

That was when there was a knock at the door. A thin man in a dark suit that just about screamed 'G-Man' stood in the door. "Armsmaster? We have a situation."

Skittered blinked behind her goggles. Director Piggot had just committed suicide with a gun in her office?

"Go ahead," Armsmaster said stiffly. He really couldn't afford to be interrupted right now.

"It's about Director Piggot. She's..." The PRT agent looked at the girl for a moment, then turned back to Armsmaster. "...dead. I think you need to come and check out the situation personally."

"Thank you very much, Agent McCune. I'm sorry, Skitter, but this really does sound critical. Here's my business card. I'd like to talk to you in the future again." Armsmaster was already halfway through.

"Well, that was a thing," Skitter muttered to herself. They both seemed quite shocked by the turn of events. With a sigh, she realized she needed to get home before her dad noticed her being gone.

She was so glad she could nap out for a perfect two hour sleep during the day. Mental powers were the coolest, she thought to herself.

* * *

Armsmaster stared at the lifeless body slumped in her office chair. She had been rather thorough, he noted in dispassionate shock.

"Master/Stranger protocols are in place. No one would have thought she would commit suicide. She just about lives for her job," McCune explained. "I've got some of my people talking to her friends, family and doctors. Did you know she was diabetic and on dialysis?"

"I did, but I thought it was under control," the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate said softly.

"If you are on dialysis, it's not really under control anymore. I had my uncle passed away six months ago due to complications. He got an infection from one of his sessions. It was a really painful way to go," the young agent explained, sounding quite upset at the memory.

Armsmaster nodded. He turned to look at a new figure that was entering the office. Ah, one of Piggot's administrators. "Agent Ormand."

"Armsmaster. Such a shame," the dark-eyed woman said. "I called Calvert, let him know I'm going to need him to fill in for my position while I take charge."

That just got a grunt of acknowledgement.

"He's not that bad, even as a consultant. And he's incredibly effective at tactics," Ormand said. "And since we're going to be working together, please call me Galatea."

"We need to get out of the way of the forensics team," he replied bluntly. "And I need to make a report to Legend about an important matter."

"Anything I should be aware of?" Galatea asked curiously.

"Just some Protectorate business that he asked me to attend to privately," Armaster said stoically.

She nodded in return. The intelligence behind her dark eyes considered the matter of the 'telepath' for just a second, but decided that it was almost certainly just another one of these Entities granting its own powers for their purposes.

Gharlane of Eddore had no real worries. The changes that had happened to this world in the last fifty years were unprecedented. Unprecedented headaches and opportunities. The way these 'Entities' traversed the alternate universes was quite different from the way that his race, the Eddorians, had developed in their quest to discover any universe where the natural laws of physics would have planets form around almost all suns in the universe.

Now they had not only this universe to conquer, but potentially a near infinite number of near duplicates of this universes. Their lust for conquest and battle, domination, would never be slaked.

Galatea Ormand just nodded and smiled to Armsmaster.


End file.
